


Quantum Entanglement Theory

by ElegantFeatherDuster



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Arthur has no clue what's going on, BAMF Merlin, M/M, Wild West style space AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-04
Updated: 2012-08-19
Packaged: 2017-11-11 10:37:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/477630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElegantFeatherDuster/pseuds/ElegantFeatherDuster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur Pendragon, captain of the space station Camelot, works hard to bring peace to the outer ring. But when a series of tragedies and accidents brings him to the doorstep of a magic-wielding mechanic, he finds that peace may not mean exactly what he thought it did.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Fire

Arthur walks down the main avenue of town, gray ash swirling around the ankles of his boots. The buildings around him have mostly fallen in, shells of structures crisscrossed by charred, blackened beams that lean against fragments of walls. There are pieces of humanity scattered across the ground - clothing, children's toys, broken pieces of furniture. But there is no sign of life; not even a plant remains on the scorched earth.

He thinks of legends he was told as a boy of cowboys and the wild west on Old Earth, that ancient blue world that they call the cradle of humanity. There was a term he'd learned in those legends - “ghost town” - that seems far too appropriate here and now a thousand years later.

A newspaper blows by, the crackle of dry paper the only sound for miles save for the crunch of his footsteps and those of the half dozen men who follow behind him. He follows it with his eyes and thinks that in another situation, he might be amused that these primitive settlers are still using paper to distribute their news.

They'd gotten the emergency signal five hours before, and even then Arthur had known it was too late. This isn't the first ghost town they've been to, it isn't even the only planet it's happened on. All of the planets in the system have been suffering, inner and outer ring alike, and no one is quite sure what's happening. Abductions, some say, raiders or aliens from the great beyond come to pillage their towns like the pirates of Old Earth. Other say it's a plague, a virus of some sort, and that's why it jumps between planets and seems not to discriminate when it comes to who or where it attacks. There's another theory though, a hushed whisper in corners and back rooms. Arthur knows that there are some who believe it's magic.

“Split up, look for survivors,” Arthur tells his men gesturing with two fingers. He's only following protocol and they all know it. They've never found anyone alive in one of these ghost towns and none of them expect this time to be any different. But Arthur has to make his report. He has to say they checked every home and shed and under every porch before he and his men got back on their ship and went home to the Camelot.

His men disperse, heading off in different directions to follow a search pattern they know by heart.

Arthur walks another few paces and picks up a book, brushing ash from its front almost reverently. It's actual bound paper with a linen cover and by rights should be sitting on a shelf in a market on one of the inner planets with a very high price tag. It's also not in a language he understands, which is strange because he knows four languages and can scrape by in three more if he's pushed. That aside, most books, if they are printed on paper at all, are printed in Basic these days. But then again, this is a planet in the outer ring and the outer ring has always been a wild land of unknowns and little, half-inhabited planets that feel like they're stuck a hundred years in the past.

Arthur still doesn't understand why his father stationed him at the edge of the outer ring instead of letting him police the inner planets like he'd always dreamed. He's always felt it was a insult or that perhaps his father didn't think he was good enough. But he still does what he can for these people. They certainly need it.

“Sir!” someone calls out and Arthur snaps to attention. He recognizes the voice as Lancelot's before Lance even turns the corner around the remains of a house. 

“We found someone,” Lance says, a little breathless. He can't have run that far, but the air here is thinner than it is on the Camelot so maybe he has an excuse.

“Show me,” Arthur says in reply and starts jogging with Lance at his side.

Arthur isn't entirely sure what he's expecting to find, maybe some terrified woman cowering in the cellar of what used to be her home or a child who'd found some tiny place to hide and gotten lucky. But what he finds is entirely unlike anything he could have imagined.

There's a raised dais of rich, red rock in the town square that looks like imported martian rock and on it is sitting a young man. He's uninjured, but his expression is utterly vacant and he does not react to Arthur's arrival except with the tiniest movement of his eyes.

Black hair, blue eyes, about 1.8 meters tall, are the data points Arthur would write down first on a profile. But they are not this stranger's most eye-catching features. Arthur stares at the tattoos that curve across his skin. He's stripped to the waist so Arthur can see the lines of dark ink that caress every angle and curve of his body with a language of symbols and patterns that he doesn't understand.

“What's your name?” Leon asks and receives no answer.

“Hey, you okay?” Percy tries after a beat of silence.

Arthur's men are all there, gathered in a half-circle around this strange survivor, but none of them seem willing to take a step towards him. They shift from foot to foot like frightened animals, glancing at each other as if to confirm that they all feel this aura of strangeness radiating from the man.

“I'm Captain Arthur Pendragon of the Camelot and these are my men. Will you tell us who you are? We'd like to help you.”

Arthur doesn't want to move closer any more than his men do. But he squares his shoulders and takes deliberate step after deliberate step forward because Arthur Pendragon is not afraid. When he is less than a stride away, he crouches to try to get a better look at his face. The man lifts his head just enough to meet Arthur's eye and for the briefest flash of a moment, Arthur thinks he sees gold and feels something like electricity jolts down his spine.

Shock. Arthur feels suddenly like a fool not to have realized it. Of course his man is suffering from shock. That's why he hasn't been speaking to them and why he hasn't moved. There's nothing mystical going on here, no reason why they should all have felt afraid. He's only a frightened young man whose entire village has gone up in smoke.

“Come with me,” Arthur says and takes the man's hands, drawing him to his feet.

The Survivor, Arthur isn't sure what else to call him since he won't give a name, walks a pace behind him in silence. His steps are sure and his boots are good but Arthur knows virtually nothing else about him.

For some reason that he can't explain, Arthur stays with him all through the flight back to base and through the registration process to get him entered into the logs on The Camelot. They don't know his medical history, can't even get a reply out of him when they ask questions, so one of the medical staff pokes and prods and gives him almost a dozen injections just to be on the safe side. They simply can't afford to bring some alien disease on board.

The man sits through it all with the same, slightly dull expression and doesn't flinch even once. Gaius checks for all kinds of things to see if something is actually wrong with him. But in the end, even Gaius is stumped and can only say that their survivor is completely healthy and that perhaps he needs a nap.

Arthur snorts and leads the way to a spare cabin they've temporarily designated for the man they rescued.

“You can sleep here for now,” Arthur tells him. “If you're unable to speak, all you have to do is shake your head and we can sort out another means of communication. But we really need some answers to help you.”

The man looks up at him with sad eyes and doesn't reply.

Arthur leaves because he doesn't know what else to do. He goes back to his duties aboard the ship, goes out on the next mission they are assigned and when he comes back, the man they found is gone. 

He catches Gwen's elbow when she walks by in a corridor, probably running errands for Gaius, and asks where the man went.

“Some of your father's men came on board and took him away. Didn't you know?” she tells him with a cheerful smile.

And no, Arthur hadn't known. He didn't sanction this and why no one bothered to check is beyond him. He should have had to sign off on the transfer, but even he can't go against his father so perhaps it's a moot point in the end.

“Oh, right,” he tells her and if the smile on her lips is too knowing, or perhaps even a little too loving, he isn't going to say anything about it. He lets her go and she carries on towards what used to be Morgana's room.


	2. Water

There is a moment in which he's falling and it feels a little like flying and then he hits the hard packed earth and all the breath rushes out from his lungs in one enormous gasp of pain.

He rolls over onto his back, his body screaming at him, to watch the tail end of a shuttle cruising away from him across the desert. The back loading hatch, where he and a couple of scruffy looking men with guns had been standing a moment before, is closing in a final cruel goodbye.

Arthur lays still for a long time until the pain dulls to an ache that seems to spread through every muscle. Then he struggles to his feet, touching fingers to his ribs gingerly and pulling them away with a hiss.

“Fuck,” he mutters. “This is just fucking wonderful.”

He and his men had followed rumor after rumor to dead end after dead end, chasing ghosts until suddenly they'd picked up a thread that actually went somewhere. Arthur had wanted to wait, to learn everything they could before they moved in to serve justice to the gang who'd been burning towns to the ground. But his father had ordered that they move out at once, and so they had.

He isn't even sure if his men are alive. He thinks he remembers seeing them before he'd been knocked unconscious and doesn't remember seeing them after. All he knows is that a bunch of goons had tied him up and flown him to a prison planet on the edge of nowhere. Arthur is no stranger to nowhere, but that doesn't mean he wants to spend the rest of his life there.

It's not even one of the real prison planets with guards and cells and walls to keep people in. It's just a tiny hunk of space rock with no ships to leave on and no law to protect a man. He's not even sure if he's within walking distance of a town or if he's destined to die of thirst in the desert.

The rock here is mostly a depressing shade of tan shot through with veins of orange, red and oddly, purple. There is alien plant life and he sees signs of animal life as well, just beginning to emerge as the light fades around him.

Arthur walks in the direction of the setting sun. It seems as good a direction to go as any, so he walks until his legs can no longer carry him then forces himself to go another mile before he falls to his knees and gives in to his weakness. He licks his lips, already dry and threatening to crack even after only a few hours, and wishes desperately for water he doesn't have.

Arthur was born among the stars. He knows the feeling of starlight better than he knows the feeling of the sun and perhaps it is that or perhaps it is simply his exhaustion which lulls him into a defenseless sleep in the middle of this barren wasteland.

“Lookit I found,” someone says and when Arthur opens his eyes, he has to shield them from the glaring mid-morning sun.

“You alive? Y'look like a corpse” the stranger says.

“I'm alive, thanks,” Arthur tries to snap. His voice comes out a weak rasp of a sound instead and he hears the man laughing at him.

“New prisoner then?” the man says and holds out his hand. Arthur takes it and together they manage to pull him to his feet.

“No. I don't belong here. I'm not like you,” Arthur croaks angrily.

“They all say that,” the man says, dusting off his hands on his trousers.

“I'm Arthur Pendragon. This is a mistake,” he growls. 

“Sure, sure, and I'm Uther Pendragon.,” the man cackles, “need a ride into town?” 

It turns out that the man's name is really Will. He's darkly tan with a mop of shaggy hair in a forgettable color that matches the desert. He's dressed in thin, ragged clothing that's been poorly mended in several places and he has the exhausted look about him of a man who works hard for the very little that he has. But he's smiling and cheerful and doesn't ask Arthur any questions about who he is or where he came from.

Arthur accepts the ride because he has no other choice and although he eyes the plastic canteen Will has slung around his shoulders on a strap, Will doesn't offer him a drink. It takes what feels like hours of riding that jars Arthur's bones and makes his sore body hurt even more to get to the pitiful little town that Will just calls Home. Maybe it doesn't even have a name.

He climbs off Will's ancient, cobbled together motorbike at the edge of town, wincing as he gets used to standing again, and looks around. It's only one dirt road lined in ramshackle houses cobbled together from wood and sheet metal.

“Can I point you towards something?” Will asks him.

“I need to find a way to get off this planet,” Arthur says and Will laughs like it's a joke.

“Yer not serious?” he says and falters when Arthur glares at him.

“You do know where you are, right?”

“Not really,” Arthur says. His captors had taken his com and his data pad and his weapons and just about everything else but the clothing on his back. He hasn't exactly had the time to work out which dingy little hellhole he's on at the moment.

“Ellios. There aren't any ships and there's no leaving unless you enlist with Mordred and his mercs, which, trust me, you don't want to do,” he says with a slightly pained expression.

“Fine. Where can I send a message off-world?” Arthur says, peeved. Mordred's mercs are the people who dropped him off here to begin with, so he definitely won't be getting a ride from them.

“Officially, nowhere. No off-world communication allowed,” Will says.

“And unofficially?” Arthur knows how these things works.

“Unofficially, you should probably go talk to Merlin. He can make pretty much anything. But he doesn't do favors so I hope you've got something to trade for it.” Will points down the road a ways at a battered old sign that says “mechanic” in carefully painted letters.

“Thanks,” Arthur mumbles, “and for saving me too.”

“Sure thing. Don't go telling people I did you a favor though. They'll be all over me wanting shit,” he says, rolling his eyes.

“Also, you'd better hurry. Gonna rain soon and it looks bad. It's either hot as balls or flooding around here most of the time. You don't want to get caught in it.” 

Will leaves in a cloud of dust accompanied by the unhappy roar of a poorly tuned engine. Arthur rolls his sore shoulders and sets off down the road wishing dearly that he still had his gun. The people he sees peering at him from doorways and between half-closed shutters look distinctly unsavory and if he knows anything about criminals, it's that most of them are more than willing to prey on someone without a gun.

When Arthur thinks “mechanic” he thinks some big, burly man with a wrench and maybe with a beard and a temper to match the rest of the stereotype. So when he gets to the building and sees a tall, skinny man sitting on the step smoking, he figures he must be a relative or an assistant.

“Is Merlin here?” Arthur asks.

“You're lookin' right at him,” Merlin says and when he turns to look at Arthur they both freeze.

“It's you!” Arthur says, too loud.

Merlin throws a screwdriver at his head.

“Ow, fuck,” Arthur swears, clutching a hand to his temple and feeling the stickiness of blood. “Why would you do that?”

“What the fuck do you want?” Merlin snarls, standing up in a flurry of limbs and glaring at him.

“I need to send a message off-world,” Arthur says through gritted teeth and wonders if he's mistaken about the confused expression that flits across Merlin's face.

“Why?” is all Merlin says in response.

“I'm not supposed to be here. I... fell off a ship.”

Merlin bursts out into unkind laughter and goes to retrieve his screwdriver without so much as an apology.

“Why should I help you?” he asks as he sits back down on the step and taps the ash off the end of his cigarette.

“I helped you,” Arthur says with all the authority he can muster. It's a gamble, but he honestly doesn't have anything else to trade.

Merlin's laugh is, if possible, even colder than before, the sound sharp and cutting to his ears.

“You actually believe that? Look where I am. Look around you.”

“You must have gotten yourself stuck here somehow. That's not my fault,” Arthur says, frowning. It's not his fault that Merlin committed a crime and got sent to this planet prison.

“Fuck you,” Merlin says dismissively, placing his cigarette between his lips and pulling in deeply. “Go away. I don't have time for this.”

“It's just a message. I need to contact my men and they'll come get me,” Arthur argues desperately. He doesn't want to beg, he really doesn't, but he doesn't have anywhere else to go.

“For all I know, you fucked up and you belong here. I'm not helping you send anything anywhere,” Merlin tells him shortly, not even looking at him.

Arthur sits down on the steps next to him with a stubborn set to his mouth and the determination to wait Merlin out. Merlin doesn't speak to him at all and eventually Arthur gets fidgety and asks a question that's been bugging him since he recognized who Merlin was.

“You were covered in tattoos before, weren't you?”

Merlin smirks, turning to meet Arthur's eyes with that intense gaze and then suddenly his eyes glow gold and his skin shifts, chameleon-like, as lines of deep blue and black crawl across the surface. This Merlin is the Merlin he remembers, beautiful and wild like he's just this side of feral. It's like he's one of the tribal gods of Old Earth legends made solid.

But then Merlin stands, dropping his cigarette stub and crushing it with the toe of his shoe, and he's back to how he was before, skin smooth and creamy-pale without a mark on it save for the grease and dirt on his hands.

“How did you do that?” Arthur asks, looking up at Merlin as he struggles to mask the awe on his face.

“Magic,” Merlin says and wiggles his fingers with an expression just dripping with sarcasm.

“No, seriously,” Arthur says.

“Seriously,” Merlin replies and walks inside, slamming the door in Arthur's face when he tries to follow.

Arthur settles back on the step angrily and watches as the raindrops begin to fall, heavy and fat, on the parched ground. At first the dust sucks the moisture in greedily, the little, round marks of dampness disappearing almost as soon as they appear. But soon there's more water than the ground can drink and rivulets of water run down the road, joining together until they form a steady stream.

He tries to drink the rain by opening his mouth and angling it upwards. But it doesn't really do much to sate his thirst and he stops because he feels like a fool sitting with his mouth open towards the heavens.

Merlin's porch has a cover of unfinished, wooden boards that may be sufficient to provide shade, but are utterly unhelpful when it comes to protection from the rain. Water drips between them in streams that run down the back of his neck under his shirt. Arthur ends up soaked and shivering, knees drawn up to his chest as he stares dismally out at the town and tries to work out what to do now. He's never felt so lost before in his life.

“You're really stubborn, you know that?” Merlin's voice says from somewhere above and behind him what seems like hours later. It's hard to tell, but Arthur thinks that the sun is setting again. He wonders how long the days here are and if they're shorter than the artificial 24-hour days that they use on the Camelot.

“I know,” Arthur says because he thinks it would be unwise to argue with Merlin any more than he already has and perhaps because it's just a little bit true.

He realizes that the feeling of raindrops hitting his head and plastering down his hair has stopped and when he looks up, Merlin is holding a tattered old umbrella over his head.

“Do you know what happened to me after I left your ship?”

Arthur shakes his head. He'd assumed that his father's men had relocated Merlin somewhere, maybe given him support or new home. But he doesn't really know for certain and there's a pang of guilt sitting low in his gut that he never checked.

Merlin sighs heavily and looks out at the road. He holds out his hand to Arthur but jerks it away when Arthur goes to take it and makes an annoyed noise before holding it out again. The fake paleness of his skin fades slowly and Arthur watches in fascination as Merlin's tattoos reveal themselves. But in the center, on the inside of his wrist, is a circular burn scar with a symbol in the middle that makes Arthur suck in his breath.

He knows that criminals are sometimes branded. It's a barbarian act he's never approved of, but with so many planets and moons and space stations in their system, taking a new identity is easy. There's nothing the government can do to mark a criminal save for an inedible mark on his skin that can't be wiped clean with a forged I.D. Card and a new name. There are different marks for different crimes; it's all very much like the traditions on Old Earth that Arthur has studied. But the mark on Merlin's wrist is not one of the several dozen brands Arthur memorized in training.

“What is that?” he says.

Merlin pulls his wrist away and stuffs his hand into his pocket almost self-consciously.

“You know what it is.”

“I've never seen that symbol before,” Arthur admits.

“You really don't know anything about what your father does, do you?” Merlin asks. It hits a little too close to home for comfort. Arthur has never had any choice but to trust his father, but he's never really been given proof that his father deserves it either. It's a conundrum he ignores most days while he and his men do their very best to improve the lives of the civilians under their jurisdiction.

“I wish you'd never picked me up. I would've been better off,” Merlin tells him quietly as he sits down on the wet wooden step, holding the umbrella between them.

“I'm sorry,” Arthur replies without really knowing why. He feels suddenly like he's seeing a fragment of some great picture through a tiny window without understanding what it means.

There's a beat of silence in which they both listen to the sound of rain hitting dirt. Arthur realizes as he sits there that both of Merlin's hands are hanging between his knees, but the umbrella is still hanging in the air between them like a tiny miracle.

“You can't send messages off-world. There's a satellite system blocking transmissions,” Merlin says at last. “The only way to leave is on a ship.”

“Does anyone know how to make one?” Arthur asks.

“You really think if someone knew how that he'd still be on this rock?” Merlin raises his eyebrows at Arthur. He almost looks like he wants to smile, like he's hiding a riddle and wonders if Arthur will figure it out.

“Maybe not if he didn't have any home to go back to,” Arthur says slowly, taking a wild stab in the dark and just hoping he hits something.

“Do you even know how much something like that would cost around here? We don't do favors,” Merlin says next. Arthur wonders if he got the right answer.

“No. Someone else told me that too. Is it some kind of local motto?”

“Kind of. We don't have money, so you pay with whatever you have that the other person wants. Food, water, manual labor, you name it. We just can't afford to do things for free,” Merlin informs him.

“I don't have anything...” Arthur says like it isn't obvious. But Merlin grins dark and terrifying and he shivers in response, through whether it's from fear or cold he isn't quite certain.

“Let me fuck you,” Merlin says steady as anything. Arthur about chokes on his own spit in response.

“Excuse me?”

“I haven't been laid in forever. Can't trust any of this lot not to stab me in the middle of things and besides, you're one of the feds from a big station so you won't have any nasty diseases,” Merlin says matter-of-factly.

“Logical,” Arthur forces out, turning away to hide the embarrassed flush on his cheeks.

“I'll trade you room and board if you help me around the shop too,” Merlin continues cheekily. “I'm the only one in town with electricity _and_ running water.”

“Can I have time to think about it?” Arthur says hesitantly.

“Sure. But I'm not letting you inside unless you say yes and don't think I can't see you shivering. I put the kettle on for coffee in case you were wondering.”

Arthur groans pitifully, looks back at the door to Merlin's shop and wavers. On the one hand there is his pride as Arthur Pendragon, son of the great Uther Pendragon and captain of the Camelot. But on the other, he is trapped on a strange planet and a man he barely knows is offering him a roof and a place to sleep and Arthur doesn't know what a kettle is, but coffee sounds wonderful right this moment.

“Fine,” he says after a pause, “I'll sleep with you.”

“Good. This'll be a fun story to tell the guys at the tavern: I fucked Arthur Pendragon. Everyone around here knows who you are so they'll get a laugh out of it,” Merlin says as he gets to his feet again. This time when he offers his hand and Arthur reaches to take it, he doesn't pull it away.

Merlin pours boiling water from what looks like a metal teapot into cups and adds instant coffee. He laughs and shoots Arthur an incredulous looks when Arthur asks if that's what a kettle is.

“You don't know?”

“Usually when I want something to drink, I just push buttons and it comes out of the machine,” Arthur admits sheepishly.

Merlin pours something from a can into a pot on the stove and stirs. It looks disgusting, but Arthur realizes that he hasn't eaten since yesterday morning and although he's not sure how long that is in standard hours, it's definitely too long and his body is starving. So he eats what he's given and doesn't complain.

It tastes a little better than it looks and things improve even more when Merlin pulls a bottle of some strange, sweet liquor out of a cabinet and pours him a glass to replace the coffee he'd finished too quickly and burned his tongue on.

They sit at a low, rough-hewn wooden table on rickety chairs and eat out of chipped bowls. Arthur gets the impression that even the bowls are a luxury and Merlin lives better than most. He wonders idly what Merlin did in exchange for these bowls and who had given them to him.

It feels strange to have their agreement weighing over him. He's never had to have sex with someone before for any reason other than that he wanted to. It's not that he thinks sex with Merlin will be unpleasant – Merlin is actually pretty easy on the eyes – but it's a strange sensation nonetheless. It feels a little like powerlessness.

He keeps catching Merlin glancing at him with the strangest expression in his eyes. It's not lust; in fact Merlin hasn't even mentioned their deal since he let Arthur into his home. It might be discomfort, but it seems a little more like curiosity, like Merlin has spent years fabricating some false version of Arthur in his head and the real one is different and unexpected.

Arthur pulls the blanket Merlin had given him a little more tightly around himself. It's not that he's ashamed of his body; he knows full well that he's good looking and even being mostly undressed in the presence of a stranger doesn't embarrass him. But when Merlin looks at him it feels more like Merlin is looking into him at things no one else has ever seen. It's unsettling.

Merlin takes their plates away and glares at Arthur when he tries to help. Cowed, Arthur sits back down and waits.

“Shut up,” Merlin says when Arthur opens his mouth to ask if there's anything he can do. So he does. Merlin continues to wash dishes.

Eventually, when Merlin seems satisfied with the state of his small kitchen, he pads back over to Arthur on quiet feet and slides easily into Arthur's lap.

His weight is solid and lighter than Arthur expected, warm and human. Arthur doesn't know where to put his hands at first, but settles on wrapping them around Merlin's waist. This close, Merlin's eyelashes are long and dark where they flutter across his cheeks when he blinks and his high cheekbones are really quite lovely.

“Is it okay if I kiss you?” he asks quietly. Merlin quirks an unexpected smile and nods. He isn't sure if it'll help, but Merlin's mouth is very inviting and if he's going to have sex with him, he may as well try to enjoy it.

He leans closer, pressing his mouth to Merlin's for no more than a moment. Merlin's breath ghosts across his lips and he smiles, doing it again for a little longer the next time and this time Merlin returns it. There's something unsure about the way Merlin kisses, like he isn't entirely sure what he's doing, and it ignites a warmth in Arthur's chest.

He doesn't want to admit it, but some part of him had feared that Merlin was planning to press him face down to the floor and fuck him while he screamed. Merlin is some strange mix of bottomless anger built up from years and years of pain and a gentleness that must stem from his very nature because no one here could have taught it to him. It's a mixture which makes him unpredictable.

Merlin kisses him for a long time and Arthur lets him, slips his tongue into Merlin's mouth as he slides fingers under the edge of Merlin's shirt and hikes it up to press hands to warm skin.

Then Merlin shoves him, hard, to the floor and there's the Merlin from before, all coiled strength and anger with a coy smile that gives him away.

“I changed my mind,” Merlin tells him. “I'm going to ride you,” and fuck if that doesn't get Arthur's blood going.

Merlin pulls his shirt off over his head and stands up for just long enough to shimmy out of his trousers while Arthur watches in a state of torn internal debate and arousal.

“It's okay to like it, you know,” Merlin says, dropping back to his knees and rolling his hips against Arthur's with a moan. Arthur's breath hitches sharply and that seems to amuse Merlin for one reason or another because he keeps smiling and eventually leans down to kiss Arthur again with a little more certainty than before.

Arthur closes his eyes and tries to imagine that he's home on the Camelot, warm and safe in his cabin. He tries to imagine he doesn't ache from being thrown out of a shuttle. But when he tries to imagine that Merlin is there with him, something about the idea is incongruous and ruins the fantasy. So he opens his eyes again and looks up at the real one and decides he's much prettier than the vague mental image Arthur has of him anyway.

“You're very pretty,” he blurts out stupidly and that sets Merlin off laughing hysterically and yet somehow he's still rotating his hips is little teasing circles that, if they are designed to make Arthur hard and a little desperate, are doing a really excellent job of it.

Arthur's eyes flutter as he moans, thunking his head back against the hard wooden floor and finally Merlin takes pity on him and goes up on his knees to help divest Arthur of what little remains of his clothing.

“Do you have-” Arthur says and is cut off when Merlin tells him, “no.” But then his eyes glow for just a moment and Arthur finds his fingers are wet and slick with something unknown and isn't that just really fucking convenient. He wants to tease Merlin about it, ask if that's something he practiced, but Merlin kisses him again as though he sees the questions coming and guides Arthur's hand back to his entrance with an unspoken demand.

Arthur presses nervous fingers to Merlin's entrance, just teasing with pressure and little careful circles. But Merlin makes a really desperate sound in the back of his throat that sends a jolt through Arthur's cock so he presses harder, sliding one finger in and feels the way Merlin's breath stutters against his neck.

“Hurry up,” Merlin demands. Arthur thinks that another time he might like to take hours teasing Merlin open like this, watching every little flutter of his eyelids and every breath that catches in his throat until he shakes with want and maybe even begs for it. But Merlin is the one in control here, never mind that Arthur is the one stretching him with fingers as he moans lewdly.

“Hurry up,” Merlin demands again and digs fingers painfully into his arm until Arthur adds a second finger and shortly thereafter a third.

“Okay?” Arthur says when Merlin grits his teeth and hisses, arching back against his hand desperately.

“Fine. What did I tell you?” Merlin snarls and bites down on the juncture between shoulder and neck so hard that Arthur whimpers. For some reason, that's what makes him snap and where before he'd been cautious and curious, he now wants very badly to fuck Merlin with everything he's worth, make him scream from pleasure, not pain.

He thrusts his fingers into Merlin hard and sharp and Merlin grins at him like he's won something.

Arthur keeps going, just watching the gorgeous lines of Merlin's body shift under his hands until Merlin pulls his hand away and lines himself up to sink down onto Arthur's cock. He's shaking and grinning with something akin to glee as he does so and when Arthur first slips into him, his mouth falls open in a silent moan. Arthur can only look on in helpless awe and let it happen.

Merlin sinks all the way down in gasping starts and stops and when he's completely seated atop Arthur's hips, he pauses for a shuddery breath and flexes long fingers where they're spread across Arthur's chest for balance.

“Alright?” Arthur takes quietly. Merlin kisses him again to shut him up and keeps kissing him like he's starving for it, like he hasn't kissed anyone in years or perhaps ever. As Arthur thinks this, he realizes that it just might be true.

Merlin rides him hard and fast and without an ounce of mercy unless neither of them can speak or even do more than make helpless, incoherent noises and slide hands across sweat-slick skin.

Merlin comes first, crying out sharply as his come splatters across Arthur's chest. He doesn't stop, even then, and keeps pushing himself up and down on thighs shaking with the strain until he pulls Arthur's orgasm from him as well. He bites his lip, drawing red blood to just under the surface and closes his eyes. Arthur can't help but imagine the sensitive, over-full feeling of carrying on once he's come. But he can't complain either because Merlin is hot and tight and it's only so long before he comes with a quiet moan and Merlin's name on his lips.

Merlin stills, grinning down at him with an expression that's a mixture of proud and sleepy and satisfied. He manages to clench his muscles one last time, drawing a weak laugh from Arthur and a gentle shove. He gives in easily and rolls onto his side on the floor in one oddly graceful movement.

“That was nice,” Merlin says, stretching with a slow groan next to him and relaxing into a luxurious position like some kind of giant cat. Arthur's still in shock and coming down from his high, but he manages to smile weakly in response as he and Merlin lay side by side trying to get their breath back.

“You can tell a lot about a person from fucking them,” Merlin says conversationally, breaking the silence.

“Oh, really?” Arthur snorts, shifting subtly on the blanket to get a better look at Merlin's profile next to him.

“For example: someone who only takes care of themselves and doesn't bother to get you off too is probably a selfish prick,” Merlin explains, smirking at some unknown point on the ceiling.

“Okay, I'll buy that. So what do you think think you learned about me?” Arthur says.

“I think... you're actually a pretty decent guy. You care a lot about people,” Merlin tells him. He's looking at Arthur with that same curious expression again, the same one that Arthur hadn't quite been sure what to make of before.

“Yeah?” Arthur prompts.

“I basically coerced you into having sex with me but you kept asking if I was okay,” Merlin says, smiling and if he didn't know better, he might think it almost looked fond.

“Yeah, well, I don't see what there is to gain from hurting you,” Arthur shrugs, trying to save face. He's not a softie, he's really not.

Merlin nods, but keeps staring so Arthur takes it as an invitation to stare back. He maps the lines of Merlin's face with his eyes until they feel familiar because he barely knows anything else about this strange man.

Eventually, Merlin gets to his feet, stretching out with a low groan. Arthur can't help but appreciate the view from his angle on the floor, watching the lean, defined muscles of Merlin's back flex and stretch and that's not to mention Merlin's really very nicely shaped ass that's right in his line of sight and the line of Arthur's come that sliding down the inside of his thigh.

“Fine. I'll make you a damn ship to get off this dump, but it's gonna take a while,” Merlin says as he walks away, still utterly and shamelessly nude, towards what Arthur guesses is his shower.

“What?” Arthur says, sitting up in a rush once he processes the words, “you weren't going to before?”

“Nope,” Merlin says, smirking back at him around a door frame before disappearing. Shortly thereafter, Arthur hears the sound of running water. But he's too busy stewing angrily over the fact that Merlin had nearly tricked him to really notice.


	3. Earth

The first night Arthur sleeps on the hard floor under the blanket Merlin gave him, damp though it is in spots from rain and from their come. But when he groans and rubs his back for a whole day after that, Merlin digs a bed roll out from somewhere and gives him a pillow that's flowery and looks like it belonged on an old lady's sofa under three of her favorite cats. How in the world it got to this planet at all is a mystery, but he can't complain about having a place to put his head at night.

“You're washing that blanket yourself,” Merlin says after handing over the flowery pillow and really, Arthur thinks, that's utterly unfair. But he stomps off to do it anyway. Then he realizes he actually has no clue how one does laundry. All his life he's lived on ships where his dirty things just went in a bin or a shaft and came back clean and smelling quite nice.

Merlin watches him, arms crossed, to see what he does and doesn't offer to help until Arthur swallows down his pride and admits he doesn't know how. Merlin bursts into a fit of laughter while Arthur sulks. But he ends up helping him eventually and makes Arthur clean some of his clothing too in exchange for the help.

Unexpectedly, they build up an easy companionship over the next few of weeks. Arthur promised to help out, but while he's flown a ship, he's never built anything even close to one. So Merlin shows him how to solder and weld and cut metal without cutting his arm off in the process. He does his best and even though he knows Merlin isn't giving him any of the important work to do and he knows he's not really that good, it still feels important to do something. Merlin seems to appreciate the company, although he sometimes couches it in unkind terms. He wields honestly like a sword, but he uses cruel sarcasm like a pat on the back.

“It's good to know you won't kill me in my sleep and take my plates,” he says.

“It's good you don't have your own house. You don't have a reason to steal my chairs.”

“It's good to have someone to make dinner and do all the heavy lifting for free so I can be lazy.”

But he's also polite when he wants to be and doesn't seem to have forgotten normal social niceties even in this hive of scum and villainy. He even says “please” and “thank you” sometimes when he isn't in the mood to tease. Once, when Arthur gets covered in thick, black oil by mistake, Merlin even lets him shower first and use up what meager hot water they have.

The odd little generator that powers a few light bulbs on bare cables and the hot water heater Merlin somehow cobbled together are a source of wonder in town. Gruff men and a few women often come by to consult with Merlin about their leaking dune riders or their own generators, most of which Merlin seems to have made to begin with. Arthur keeps mostly out of the way when these people come by, keeping his head down and trying not to draw too much attention even though he knows there are rumors about him. When he watches around corners or from under his eyelashes while he sweeps the ever-present dust back out the door, he learns that somehow Merlin has become a strange kind of king in this dusty town.

Sometimes, Merlin disappears for hours at a time and once for a whole day and returns laden with an array of parts - circuit boards, tubing, wires and other miscellany. He's not sure what Merlin is bartering for these things or even if he's stealing them, but he keeps to his work and doesn't ask questions.

He's more than a little nervous about the idea of building something that's going into space out of what appears to be a pile of scrap in Merlin's back yard. He has no idea if Merlin is even capable of such a thing or where he could possibly have learned how to make an entirely bloody space ship. Sure, he consults an old, leather-bound book every now and then. But it's in that same odd language that Arthur remembers from the ghost town he'd found Merlin in and it doesn't contain any diagrams or evidence that Arthur can see that it's about space flight at all. 

Merlin mutters strings of strange words sometimes and later Arthur finds bits of machinery assembled or fused together so finely that no tools Merlin owns could possibly have done the work.

He starts to call these strange things Merlin does “miracles” because he knows two things for certain: that magic is evil and that Merlin is not. It is not possible, therefore, that Merlin knows how to do magic. So he smiles when Merlin preforms miracles and laughs when Merlin gets up in the morning looking blearily-eyed with his hair stuck up in unpredictable directions. It's easier to simply accept Merlin as Merlin.

They don't have sex again, but Arthur can't really deny that there's a small, secret part of him that wants to and sometimes, when he meets Merlin's eyes over their work or their meager dinner, he wonders if Merlin feels the same.

One early morning there's a knock on the door. Arthur grumbles sleepily and pulls himself out of bed to go answer it. Merlin meets him half way there, nearly bowling him over in a frantic rush of limbs.

“Hide,” Merlin hisses, sharp and afraid.

“What?” Arthur says back, voice low to match Merlin's frantic tone.

“Just hide,” Merlin snarls at him. But then the doorknob is twisting as the person outside tries to open it and Merlin is running barefoot across the room to stop him coming inside. Arthur does the very first thing that occurs to him and darts into Merlin's bedroom, the only room in the whole house with a door which he closes behind him as quietly and quickly as possible. He glances at the bed, considers crawling under it, then decides that he very badly wants to know what's going on. So he presses his ear to wood and closes his eyes, straining to catch words.

He catches the tail ends of a few sentences, too quiet to pick out each individual word.

“What do you want, Mordred?” he hears Merlin say more loudly. He can just imagine it too: the angry tilt to Merlin's hip and his arms crossed over his skinny chest.

“Am I not allowed to come by just for a visit, Emrys?” Arthur hears in response. There's a dark humor to the voice, a silky feeling that he doesn't like in the slightest. It must be the same Mordred he's been tracking all this time; there's no possible way it's a coincidence. He's never been able to drag up any kind of visual or even a description, but the voice coming from Merlin's front step sounds so much younger than he expected.

“No, and especially not when you've brought that lot along with you,” he hears Merlin say. There must be more of them standing out on the porch. Now that he's listening for it, he can even hear the creak of wood just on the other side of the wall to his right. It's really a very lucky thing that Merlin has drawn the curtains over his one small window or the men outside would be able to look right in and see Arthur standing there.

“They're just my escorts,” he hears Mordred say.

“Thugs, you mean,” Merlin snaps back, sharp as a whip and Arthur can hear the anger in his voice.

There's a pause in which Arthur suspects Mordred is sighing, and then he says, “we heard a rumor that the newest addition to town has been hanging around with you. As far as I know, the only new drop-off in the last couple-a months was our favorite blonde Prince of the Galaxy, and seeing as he's supposed to be a pile of bones out in the desert, it would be “inconvenient” if he'd somehow made it all the way here.”

“I don't know what you're talking about,” Merlin lies. His timing is perfect, not a hurried second too early or a hesitant beat too late and his voice is perfectly steady. Arthur has to admire his skill. There aren't many who can lie with so much dexterity.

“So you don't mind if we come in and take a poke around?” Mordred asks with mock-pleasantness. Arthur panics and looks at the bed again, trying to gauge how quickly he'll be able to scramble under it.

“Like hell. If you or your thugs take a step over his threshold you won't live to tell of it,” Merlin says, deadly serious.

“Careful, brother. It sounds an awful lot like you're hiding something,” Mordred says, the pleasantness of before suddenly gone from his tone.

“Last time I let your thugs into my house they stole half my stuff. For fuck's sake, they stole my fucking forks,” Merlin growls. Arthur wants to smile because he's certain Merlin just rolled his eyes very dramatically in that way he has. But he's a bit distracted by the fact that Mordred just called Merlin “brother” and wonders if he means they're actually related.

Curiosity gets the better of him then. He turns the knob ever so slowly and pushes the door open until there's a sliver of a gap through which he can peer at Merlin's back surrounded by the bright light pouring in through the doorway.

He sees that Mordred is as young as he thought, younger certainly than Merlin and that he has the same dark hair and intense eyes that Merlin does. Mordred stands with the easy, self-assured swagger of a man who knows he has the company of powerful backup who will do his bidding. But Merlin radiates a power of his own that sings through the lines of his body - the kind of self-assurance that unlike Mordred's, comes entirely from a knowledge of his own strength.

“Pity. I was hoping we could have some tea, maybe some fresh fruit. I had one of the boys bring a crate down off the ship,” Mordred says, gesturing back at someone outside his line of sight.

“Don't try to bribe me,” Merlin snaps. Arthur suspects that Mordred's tactic used on anyone else would be shockingly successful. This planet has taught him an appreciation for even the simplest things and he can only imagine what it's like living here for years, even decades, and never tasting anything fresh or exotic.

Something seems to break then because Mordred drops the very last of whatever pretense he'd been maintaining and simply glares at Merlin flat out. Merlin meets his gaze steadily and Arthur feels something building in the air as they face off. He can only compare the thickness to the heavy, damp feeling of the atmosphere during a storm, except that the air is bone dry. There's something in it too that feels like static electricity, like the charge just before a lightning strike. It makes his fingertips tingle and itch.

The moment snaps, Arthur only just stifling a gasp as he feels a shock run down his spine and out into his fingers and toes. Mordred turns away in a huff, Merlin doesn't move and Arthur listens to the sound of several pairs of boots tromping off the porch and onto the dirt road.

Merlin doesn't close the door, he just stands and watches with a furrowed brow and an angry set to his mouth.

“Was that magic?” Arthur asks quietly when he believes Mordred and his men are well out of earshot.

Merlin whirls to face him, eyes still rimmed in gold.

“Fell off a space ship, huh?” Merlin says after a too-long pause in which Arthur is left to stew guilty over the fact that Merlin has probably just saved his life. His dept just keeps growing.

“Okay. Maybe more like... I was pushed off one?” he says slowly.

“Fuck. I wish I'd known you were involved with Mordred. This makes everything ten times more complicated,” Merlin grumbles, but Arthur can see the edges of his lips twitching ever so slightly because Merlin can never pass over a chance to laugh at him. He takes a chance and pushes his advantage.

“It wasn't even a good fight or anything. I was just standing there complaining about how hot it was and a couple of guys pushed me off the edge when I wasn't expecting it,” he tells Merlin. He's rewarded with one barking laugh.

“Whatever, it's not like I'm going to turn down a chance to fuck Mordred over. He deserves it.”

“Is he really your brother?” Arthur blurts out in a rush and then freezes in place when Merlin fixes him with an intense stare.

“Er,” Arthur says, ready to retract his question.

“Yes,” Merlin replies, cutting him off as he strides towards Arthur with purpose in his step.

“And you know what he-”

“Burned Ealdor to the ground and killed everyone I ever loved. Yes.”

“I'm sorry,” Arthur whispers as Merlin stops moving a step past the normal boundary of his personal space.

“Yeah, well, it already happened. Let me know when you figure out time travel,” Merlin almost snarls in his face.

“No, I mean it. I'm sorry,” Arthur says, wrapping his fingers around Merlin's wrist and hoping that Merlin will understand.

It takes a moment, but the hard set of Merlin's mouth softens and then he's wrapping long arms around Arthur and burying his face in Arthur's neck. There are no tears; Merlin is too strong for tears. But Arthur knows instinctively that not since the fire has Merlin had anyone to hold onto. He's been so utterly alone.

“There's no one left for you,” Arthur says quietly, wrapping arms around Merlin's back. He understands now why Merlin would accept life on this prison of a planet even though he doesn't belong here any more than Arthur does.

“Gee thanks,” Merlin says with a wince. But there's no heat in it, only a hollowness that Arthur hears now and realizes has been there all alone.

“Will comes by sometimes to help out and and have drinks,” Merlin says eventually and it's just like him not to take anything Arthur says without at least trying to argue.

“He's not actually your friend though,” Arthur presses.

“Don't make me throw another tool at your face, Arthur. That wrench over there will do a lot more damage than the last one,” Merlin sighs.

“Save it for Mordred,” Arthur tells him quietly and smiles when Merlin huffs out a laugh.

Eventually, Merlin wanders off to brush his teeth and put on the rest of his clothing and Arthur, because he's in a charitable mood, attempts to make breakfast.

Except that he's never made breakfast before without Merlin's supervision and things begin to go terribly wrong about half way through. It's only Merlin's shout from the next room of “why does it smell like burning?” that saves their toast and it's only Merlin returning fully dressed to investigate that saves their eggs.

“Arthur, you used my last two eggs. Do you know how annoying it is to get eggs?” Merlin whines.

“No?” Arthur replies setting out their plates within easy reach to pretend like he's doing something useful.

“I have to go flirt with Mary. You know, the one who owns the tavern,” Merlin carries on as he cuts the mass of egg in half and divides it onto their plates.

Arthur makes a face and an unhappy noise in response and almost, not but quite, misses the small smile on Merlin's face as he turns away.

“Well I thought this morning was a good morning for something special,” Arthur replies loftily.

“You just wanted eggs, you prat,” Merlin says grumpily, handing Arthur his plate before carrying his own off towards the little wooden table where they sit to share all their meals.

Arthur agrees to take a turn flirting with Mary to acquire eggs because his first attempt at cheering Merlin up had only been partially successful and not a roaring success like he'd hoped.

He ends up acquiring eggs, a large bottle of milk, a thick chunk of preserved goat meat and an only slightly stale loaf of bread. Under no circumstances does Arthur believe it was his cleaning of her kitchen floor that earned him the food, however. He knows full well it was the view of his ass while he worked and the kiss he'd closed his eyes and allowed her to bestow on his mouth that got him the goods.

“I'm sending you to Mary's from now on!” Merlin exclaims when he returns, dirty and sore but triumphant. They have a veritable feast that night and their days fall back into the pattern of before.

True to his word, Merlin does continue to send Arthur to Mary for food. He ends up making the tavern cleaner than he suspects it's been since the day it was constructed. But he learns an awful lot from the gossip of the town folk in the process.

He learns, for example, that every month or so there's a large box dropped from the heavens that contains whatever the overseers of this planet decide they feel like providing. Generally, it's food, but sometimes it's beer, furniture, clothing or the odd disgruntled animal or broken tractor.

Somehow, the town folk have sorted themselves into their own little hierarchy. All food goes to Mary who has the cellar to keep it good for as long as possible and the iron fist necessary to dole it out fairly among the residents. All animals except chickens go to Will who apparently has a farm out on the East end of town. Furniture goes to a carpenter girl named Freya who people say has a crush on Merlin. The story goes that Merlin has a crush on her too, but they're both to shy to do anything about it. Arthur finds himself scrubbing the bar a little more angrily as he listens. Clothing, spare parts, and just about anything else are fair game depending on who needs them the most. But when everyone has had their pick, most of what's left gets dumped in Merlin's scrap heap or goes to the seamstress on the other end of town.

He's been taught all his life that peacekeepers like himself are a necessary part of the greater functioning whole of society. In training, they drilled into him that without him and all of his fellows, the peacefully turning wheel would grind to a halt. But realizes a little more with each passing day that what he thought was a town of dysfunctional criminals has managed to organize itself into something that almost works. That's not to say there aren't fights and everyone here lives on the very edge. They are hungry and tired and often unhappy, but it's nothing at all like what he believed.

One day a week later, he comes home to find Merlin waiting for him with a shotgun slung over his shoulder. Lately, Merlin has started to relax about covering his tattoos when Arthur is around. They flicker in and out of sight, Arthur never sure which to expect when he next looks at Merlin.

Right now they're in plain view, and combined with the gun and the smirk on Merlin's face they paint quite the picture. He isn't sure if he should be running for the hills or pushing Merlin up against the wall to kiss the stupid smirk off his mouth.

“You're going hunting tomorrow,” Merlin says, shaking him out of his slightly guilty fantasy.

“Excuse me?” Arthur says, confused.

“Will is going out hunting for jackalopes,” Merlin smirks.

“He's hunting for what now?” Arthur says, incredulous.

“We just call them that. They look like really long rabbits with horns,” Merlin tells him with a shrug, pushing the gun into his hands as he climbs onto the porch.

Arthur is an excellent shot, the best in his class at the academy. But the gun Merlin gives him is an antique. It's heavy and loud and hurts his shoulder every time he fires it. He and the boys have always laughed about primitive weapons, but here he is trying to learn to shoot empty tin cans off a fence with one.

The hunting trip goes well. Arthur gets three jackalopes and tries not to look at the string of twelve or so that Will carries over his shoulder with ease. When they part ways, Will takes two of his with the promise to return them as jerky and Arthur heads home with the last one for dinner.

He almost has a heart attack when he walks in the door and the entire front room where they've been building the ship is empty.

“I moved it to the barn,” Merlin says, smirking at Arthur's expression.

“I didn't even know you hard a barn,” Arthur tells him, jackalope hanging temporarily forgotten in his hand.

“Did you really expect me to build an entire spaceship in my front room?” Merlin says, taking the animal from him and walking outside with a large knife.

Arthur's never seen animals being cleaned for eating before and the sight almost makes him ill. Back on the Camelot, meat always came cooked and served on a dish and it didn't even always come from a real animal. The science of making planet-based meats almost identical in texture, taste to real meat is old news and standard practice in many places.

But Merlin cuts open the jackalope with practiced ease, leaving the unwanted bits on the ground for the scavengers like it's nothing. Arthur goes to find something else to do.

“Why don't you just take Mordred out for good?” Arthur asks over their jackalope stew. It's actually surprisingly good, though he's not certain if that's because jackalope is actually that tasty or because Merlin is mysteriously talented at making stew.

“Well that's a question out of the great blue yonder. Why are you asking?” Merlin replies, raising his eyebrows slowly as he blows on a spoonful of hot stew.

“I mean, you're more powerful, aren't you?” Arthur carries on. He's been thinking about this for days and it's finally gotten to the point where it was driving him mad not to ask.

“I guess,” Merlin says very cautiously. They haven't discussed Merlin's magic before, not in plain terms like this. It feels like treading on dangerous territory.

“So why don't you just do everyone a favor and take them out?”

“Arthur, I can keep a few ruffians out of my house, but I can't just go take down an entire gang!” he says, exasperated.

“I think you could though. It seems like you could do pretty much anything you wanted to do if you put your mind to it,” Arthur keeps trying. He doesn't know where this faith in Merlin comes from exactly, but he's more than willing to trust it, to trust Merlin.

“I just can't. I'm not some avenging angel. I don't feel the need to go around the universe and do people favors like you do,” he snaps.

“But sorcerers are evil! Just look at what they did to your town. Besides, he's family and he betrayed you and I think you deserve revenge,” Arthur says in earnest. He meets Merlin's eyes when Merlin stares at him furiously.

“Magic users are evil, huh?” Merlin hisses, dangerous and low.

“Well, yes. Sorcerers-”

“You can use that word if you want, Arthur, but don't try to make it sound like you're correcting me.”

“But that's what they're called-”

“No, that's what idiots like you named them. It's downright archaic.”

“Sorcerers use magic and magic is evil-”

“What does that make me then?” Merlin snarls at him, standing up in a fury that knocks his bowl to the floor to shatter with a crack and a wet sound. Arthur stares at the thick, brown stew leaking across the wood and can't help but think that now they only have one bowl between them.

“I don't know,” Arthur admits quietly, unable to look up at Merlin.

Merlin storms away, out the door and down the steps and then Arthur loses track of him. He sits, utterly still, at their table for a long time. His own food goes cold and then at least he has an excuse not to want it other than the gnawing guilt in his stomach that makes him feel ill. He cleans up the broken shards of Merlin's bowl, placing them one by one into a small cloth because he isn't sure if he should throw them away or if even broken pieces can be made into something useful or maybe even beautiful again on this planet.


	4. Air

Merlin shuffles in the door an hour after sunset and doesn't meet Arthur's eyes. Merlin's skin is pale, tattoos hidden and Arthur wonders when he started to think Merlin looks strange this way,

“All magic users aren't criminals,” Merlin says quietly, coming to sit next to Arthur on the floor in front of the fire. The temperature has started to drop more dramatically at night in recent weeks. Arthur doesn't know how long seasons or even years are on this world, but lately it feels like winter is approaching. Given the arid climate, he doubts it will snow much. But the image of their little town covered in a layer of white snow is charming nonetheless.

“My father always told me they were. He said magic corrupts the people who have it from the inside out and they do terrible things with their power,” Arthur says, lifting up his arm to open a space by his side, inviting Merlin to fill it.

“People with magic don't start out evil. They get made into criminals by you lot.” Merlin doesn't even pause to look at him before he ducks under Arthur's arm into the empty space. Arthur tucks his arm around Merlin's shoulders, pulling him closer with a sigh.

“I've met a lot of evil sorcer- magic users,” Arthur tells him, only just managing to correct himself lest he make Merlin angry all over again.

“If you tell someone they're a criminal enough times, they might just start to believe it. It's not like people who are magic have the option to live normal lives under your father's rule,” Merlin says miserably.

“They could just not learn magic in the first place,” Arthur argues.

“That's not how it _works,_ Arthur. You don't learn magic, you only learn how to use it.”

When Arthur doesn't reply, leaving the air open with a hanging question, Merlin continues in stops and starts.

“Magic is like... it's this force that exists everywhere in the universe. Everything and everyone has magic inside, and just like some people are born with blonde hair or blue eyes, some people are just born with the ability to feel or... channel magic more strongly than other people.”

“I'm not magic,” Arthur says, torn between revulsion at the very idea and curiosity at Merlin's words.

“You don't even know how wrong you are,” Merlin says quietly, lips curling in a secret smile.

“Fine. Okay. So force that runs through the galaxy or whatever. Why aren't there good magic users too? It's got to be outlawed for a reason,” Arthur asks just to cover the unsettled feeling that had blossomed with Merlin's suggestion.

“It's outlawed because your father is a tyrant and a hypocrite. We can't even hide anymore because he had someone design that fucking magic test,” Merlin says, voice thick with old anger.

“He had that designed to protect people!” Arthur tells him. He remembers the day at the academy when his professor had explained that they had a test for magic. The great medical advance of the age, he'd called it, a blessing that helped them identify dangers to the galactic peace.

“Have you ever been tested for magic?” Merlin asks him, staring hard into the fire.

“No. I think because I was Uther's son no one ever dared to try,” Arthur admits. There's always been a part of him that hated the special treatment he got at training because of his father. He knows at least dozen men who are better than he is, but now he ranks far above them.

“It's excruciatingly painful if they don't knock you out first or give you pain meds. It feels like dying.” 

The horror rising in Arthur's chest is physically painful, but Merlin continues anyway.

“I was the only survivor that's ever been found after one of the attacks. Your father's men were certain that I knew something useful,” he whispers quietly, drawing knees up to his chest and resting his forehead against them to hide his face.

Arthur watches the light of the flames flicker over Merlin's skin in patches of warm gold and orange. After a moment, he takes Merlin's wrist gently in his hand and brushes his thumb over the place where he knows the brand was burned into Merlin's beautiful skin even if he can't see it.

“My father's line has been magic as far back as anyone can remember, probably back all the way to Old Earth. It's just a stupid story but... he used to tell me when I was a child that our ancestors controlled dragons.” He laughs quietly, not lifting his head but shifting his hand to lace fingers in between Arthur's. He doesn't squeeze, just lets them sit there loosely - little contact points of warm skin touching skin.

“But dragons aren't real.”

“I know, you idiot. That's why I said it was a story,” Merlin mumbles.

“Is your father dead too?” Arthur asks.

“Yes. But he died a long time ago. Some of your father's men killed him.”

“I'm sorry,” Arthur tells him and for the first time since Arthur started apologizing to him, Merlin says, “it's okay.”

“There was this book that my father had. I remember getting up to sit on the kitchen table and read it when I was a kid. Everyone knew he was magic. But I guess someone ratted him out and when I was a teenager a bunch of Uther's man came into town looking for him,” Merlin tells him bitterly. Arthur sucks in a breath because he knows what comes next. Everyone knows what comes next.

“They burned his book when they found it. But when it was lying there on the floor burning, my father shouted a spell and all the ink in all those beautiful words flew out and stained my skin. He didn't have any other blank canvas to put it on, I guess.” Merlin curls in on himself miserably as Arthur tightens his hold on Merlin's shoulders.

He knows why his father's men burned the book. Officially, they should have saved it as evidence for a trial. But they'd likely known that Merlin's father would try to save something so precious, so valuable. A suspected sorcerer they would have to arrest and bring in. But a confirmed sorcerer, particularly one they could claim had moved to use his magic against them, was just an excuse for murder.

“Merlin,” Arthur says gently. He waits for Merlin to lift his head to look him in the eye. But when Merlin finally does, they find themselves closer than they'd expected. Arthur had something to say, but now he can't quite recall what it is and Merlin's mouth is right there anyway so he just closes the rest of the gap and kisses him instead. It seems simpler.

Arthur can't honestly say what he was expecting Merlin to do because he never actually thought forward past the whole pressing his mouth against Merlin's mouth thing. But Merlin kisses back almost immediately and that's definitely the best resulting scenario Arthur could have come up with had he tried. 

Merlin's mouth is warm and lovely so Arthur takes his time exploring it. They're not in a rush to have sex and no one is being coerced, so he figures it's as good a time as any to learn the feel and shape of the lips he won't admit to staring at sometimes when Merlin is talking to him and isn't quite paying attention.

After a few minutes spent just like that, Merlin tries to climb into his lap and Arthur pushes him off again. Merlin makes an affronted little noise that Arthur refuses to admit is adorable and glares at him. Arthur takes Merlin's hands and pulls him up as he stands all in one motion and then he scoops Merlin up into his arm with another noise that's closer to indignant.

The frown on Merlin's face is deep set and angry, but Arthur's known him long enough now that he can simply laugh at it until Merlin doesn't have a choice but to twitch his lips up into a smile again and then join in. Arthur carries him to their little shared bed and to his credit, Merlin only struggles a little and Arthur only bangs his shin once while trying to get Merlin onto his back on the bed without incident.

Arthur pulls his shirt off over his head and the chill in the room draws up goosebumps along his shoulders. Merlin, somehow, it already half way to being undressed and wiggling under the blankets at the same time to preserve his body heat. Arthur finishes with his trousers and underwear and slides in next to him, pressing cold fingers to Merlin's stomach just to make him gasp and wriggle.

Arthur feels the strange snap-crackle of magic in his hands and suddenly they're warm and Merlin is smirking at him from two inches away.

“Cheater,” Arthur says and kisses him again before Merlin can respond.

“Do you want to fuck?” Merlin says once they draw apart to take a breath.

“Yeah,” Arthur says, grinning. But then they start bickering over who's going to top which, frankly, is a pretty stupid argument, but probably not their stupidest. Then suddenly Merlin disappears under the sheets and a moment later he's started sucking Arthur's cock like he's desperate for it and keeps going just long enough for Arthur to be painfully hard and willing to do just about anything Merlin wants.

It's a plan that dastardly simple and very effective.

“You've never bottomed?” Merlin says, laughing at him with two fingers inside.

“No,” Arthur whines, writhing a little as Merlin curls his fingers.

Maybe it makes sense – Arthur has the muscular, authoritative, military thing going for him- but frankly, Merlin's met big hairy bears of men who've just loved having someone else fuck them. He knows better than to believe stereotypes all the time.

“Guess I get to take your virginity,” Merlin smirks at him. 

“I'm not a virgin!” Arthur argues. It's an odd time to notice, but Arthur sees that Merlin's tattoos have resurfaced. Maybe it's just because he's distracted, but Arthur likes to think it's because they've officially made up now.

Then Merlin adds another finger and Arthur's brain stutters to a halt as he moans loudly. Merlin really does have extraordinarily talented hands. He drags the pads of the fingers on the hand that isn't currently working Arthur open across Arthur's skin, the roughness of old callouses against the pale, soft skin of Arthur waist and hip and thigh. 

Just when Arthur is getting used to the pleasantly full feeling of Merlin's fingers and has started making gentle noises that he's figured out make Merlin smile, Merlin takes them away. He arches a little, rocking hips as he searches after the feeling almost without thinking about it. Then Merlin folds his legs up against his body, pushing them apart just until Arthur begins to feel the stretch of it, and lines himself up.

“This was not what I was expecting to have happen when I got dropped off here,” Arthur says a touch breathlessly, eyes tracing the contours of Merlin's face.

“You mean 'when you fell off a space ship?” Merlin says, huffing out a soft laugh at he bends himself gracefully over Arthur and kisses him.

He slides his tongue between Arthur's lips just as he slips his cock in. Merlin must use that stupid spell again that makes him slick and dammit, Arthur still doesn't have the breath or time to mock him about it no matter how much he wants to.

Merlin is gentle for a little while, letting Arthur get used to it for just long enough to make it evident that there's a streak of kindness under the bossy exterior. But he gets impatient eventually and sets the pace hard and fast. Arthur finds he's doesn't actually mind very much and the expression on Merlin face, different from the last time, more determined, makes up for any residual discomfort.

“Enjoying yourself?” Merlin says eventually. Arthur is about to reply, but Merlin angles his hips just so and the whole of his thrust makes Arthur's cock twitch as he moans shamelessly. Naturally, Merlin does it over and over again, each wave building on the ebb of the last until Arthur can't handle it anymore. He feels as though he's about to come and then finds suddenly that he's unable to do so.

“Merlin!” he whines and Merlin starts laughing at him all over again. He carries on, keeping Arthur on the the very edge until he can barely breathe and his hips are twitching and he's only a moment away from screaming.

Then Merlin thrusts hard and deep and comes, letting Arthur go at the same moment. He makes the most wonderfully filthy noise as Arthur clenches hard around him in waves, riding his orgasm. Some distant corner of Arthur's mind files that noise away next to a mental image of Merlin's face in that moment, flush high on his cheeks with wild hair and wild eyes. It'll make really wonderful wank material in the future.

Merlin collapses on him and ignores any and all protestations Arthur makes. He knows, as Arthur does, that they're only half-hearted at best.

“Does this mean we're together now or something?” Merlin mumbles against his shoulder. Arthur barks out a laugh because usually it's Merlin who knows things, not him.

“I have no fucking idea,” he says just as Merlin starts to laugh quietly. 

Merlin is starting to feel a bit heavy, but he's also warm and pliable and Arthur is feeling terribly affectionate so he lets Merlin fall asleep curled up on his chest.

He wakes up in the morning to sunlight in his eyes and moans, shading his face with one hand and blinking to adjust his sight. It takes him a moment to remember that he's in Merlin's bed, and it takes another for him to remember that Merlin is there too. He turns his head to look at the warm weight next to him, smiling stupidly.

“Don't get smug. You're still an idiot,” Merlin grumbles, voice thick with sleep. Arthur kisses his forehead affectionately and pulls him closer. 

He doesn't know what time it is, though he's slowly but surely gotten used to the schedule of the sun on this planet. It's freeing in a way to know that what time it is doesn't matter and that he and Merlin can stay curled up and floating in this timeless piece of the world they've carved out for themselves for as long as they like.

The day comes, as Arthur knew and has lately begun to fear it would, that Merlin turns to him and says, “we're almost done.”

“Oh,” Arthur replies. He isn't sure whether he's happy about the news or not. Merlin kisses him briefly like an apology and then goes back to his work.

Three days later, Arthur stands in Merlin's barn and looks at what the scrap heap in Merlin's yard has become. Before, Arthur would have scoffed at what he sees now, calling it a danger and a pile of junk. Perhaps it still is, but it's something that they've made together and if he can't trust Merlin with his life, he's not sure who else he can trust with it.

“Pretty sexy, huh?” Merlin calls out to him as he pushes open the large barn doors to let light flow into the gloom.

“Not as sexy as you,” Arthur says, grinning.

“Never. Ever. Say that again,” Merlin replies, miming a gagging motion where Arthur can see.

“Oh, shut up,” Arthur tells him, laughing.

Merlin spends the afternoon checking, double checking and triple checking as many things as he can find. Arthur wouldn't really know if something was wrong either way, so he climbs up into the rafters and watches Merlin work, calling out words of encouragement and teasing him all the while.

The sun is setting by the time Merlin admits he can't find anything else to look over. Technically, it doesn't matter if the sun is out or not when Arthur launches, but he and Merlin agree it's far too late to get anything more done for the day anyway. They go home and have dinner and try desperately to act like Arthur isn't leaving the next morning.

Arthur's been sleeping in Merlin's bed ever since the night in front of the fire. The flowery pillow and his blanket have migrated to the bed with him which is for the best because the colder nights necessitate a warmer bed for them both. 

Arthur has no other possessions, nothing he needs to pack, so he sulks and watches the one thing he wants to take most in the world wander restlessly around the house.

“I just have a really bad feeling,” Merlin says when Arthur asks him why he's pacing.

“Just come to bed,” Arthur mutters.

“No, I mean it. I think I might go check on the ship again,” Merlin says. He's done it twice since dinner already, run out to the barn and back just for peace of mind. Arthur sighs deeply and tries to talk him out of it.

“It'll be fine. Please, just come to bed. I need to get some sleep if I'm going to do a good job flying tomorrow.” He doesn't mention that this feels like the last night they'll have together and he wants to spend it drawing his fingers across Merlin's warm skin whenever he wants, not watching him shuffle across creaky floorboards.

“It will only take a few minutes,” Merlin argues.

“A few minutes you could be spending in bed,” Arthur says, patting the patch of bed nearest his hand.

Finally, Merlin gives in and crawls under the blankets next to him, molding his body along Arthur's back to hold him close. Arthur leans into it, more comfortable than he can remember being in a long time. Merlin's bed is nothing like as comfortable his bed back on the Camelot. But it's a far sight better than a thin bedroll on the floor and having Merlin in it with him makes everything at least ten times better.

He smiles fondly, wrapping his arm around Merlin's on his waist, and just when his eyelids are flickering on the verge of sleep, he hears someone begin to shout an alarm outside.

“No!”

Arthur jolts upright when he hears Merlin's shout and feels the sudden lurch of Merlin bolting out of bed in a panic.

“No, no, no,” Merlin says, eyes wide as he rushes for the door. 

Arthur is only a few steps behind him, but by the time he manages to get his boots on, Merlin feels like he's miles ahead, running off into the night. Arthur chases him down the steps, not even bothering to pull the door shut behind him, and runs as fast as his legs can carry him after Merlin's retreating form.

It's a last minute thing, but as he passes through the door, Arthur closes his fingers around the rifle leaning next to it and takes it with him slung under one arm.

There's a flicker of light over the rooftops and by the time he rounds the last corner into full view of the barn, he's already guessed what's wrong. Flames lick out of holes in the wooden siding, eating the boards like dry paper as smoke rises into the night and blots out the stars.

There's a man silhouetted against the light and though the contrast of form against brightness blurs away most of the details, he catches the briefest sight of the man's face and the ugly scar across it as he turns his head the moment before he starts running off into the darkness.

Arthur has to drop the rifle and tackle Merlin to keep him from following the scarred man or from running into the barn, Arthur isn't sure which. He wraps arms around Merlin's skinny body and struggles to contain the wild storm of limbs that lash out in every direction. Merlin is screaming, cursing every god that he knows and doesn't believe in, cursing all the galaxy and the stars beyond in a dozen languages. Arthur presses his head to Merlin's shoulder, willing him to stop and be calm.

He almost thinks he has things under control when Merlin stops struggling in his arms and starts shaking with the sobs that rack through his body instead. But when he hears the crunch of boots on gravel and the slow crawl of static he's come to associate with powerful magic, he knows he's dead wrong. The sound of Mordred's voice turns his blood cold.

“I knew you'd come out of hiding eventually, Arthur,” he says and there's a strange reverberation in Arthur's head like Mordred is talking directly into his brain.

“Leave us alone,” Arthur says quietly. He takes a deep breath and begins to walk away, nudging Merlin along at his side though Merlin resists, still trying in weak stops and starts to move towards the burning barn.

“You're supposed to be dead,” Mordred drawls after him.

“Should've told your lot shoot me in the head, then,” Arthur growls without turning.

“But that's so messy. If you died in the desert on a planet where no one would ever come looking it would be so much cleaner. No murder investigation, just a missing persons report filed away in a desk somewhere after a few years of your father pouring resources into a fruitless search,” Mordred says. Arthur can see the sick kind of logic in it, but there's still something to it that disturbs him.

“You and your gang kill entire towns,” Merlin says, and _ah,_ Arthur thinks, _that's it._ Messy isn't usually a concern.

“We burn the bodies. Hell, we burn everything. They say cleanliness is next to godliness and there's no better way to purge filth than to burn it,” Mordred says and it so very similar to something Morgana used to say that Arthur clenches his fists.

“It is the way of the Old Religion. Fire is more ancient than any of us,” Mordred says.

“It's the most powerful force in the galaxy.” Arthur finishes for him. Word for word, it's sometimes Morgana used to say when she lit candles in her room as a young woman and watches the flames flicker. He remembers thinking that she was wrong, that flames can't burn in the vacuum of space. 

He knows now that Morgana has some hand in this as well, though she'll never show her face. It's likely that if Mordred fails, if he dies or if he's captured, she will disappear like a ghost into a crowd. He hasn't known where Morgana is for years and he's long since stopped searching.

Arthur takes a deep breath. It does nothing to lessen the rage coursing through his blood, making his veins sing and hands shake. He knows Mordred is baiting them; it's so painfully obvious. But the part that annoys him the most is that it's working.

“Or maybe you'd rather just punch me in the face for killing Merlin's dear mother.”

Merlin spins with a furious noise and it's only Arthur grabbing his wrist tightly that stops him rushing Mordred.

“She was your mother too!” Merlin screams at him.

“No she wasn't!” Mordred screams back, causing Merlin to stumble and stare, as much because of the sudden change in Mordred's tone as the words themselves.

“But she was,” Merlin says brokenly.

“My mother was a whore in a brothel somewhere. Father never told you, did he?” Mordred sneers. Arthur has met many terrible men, desperate and evil and sometimes a combination of the two, but only a few times before has he encountered someone who so truly delights in cutting deep with sharpened words instead of tools.

“You were always the one with the gift for being in people's head, not me,” Merlin says quietly.

“Gift,” Mordred spits. “Yes, because it's a gift to let a child learn that adults are terrified of him, that people hate him with every fiber of their being for something that isn't his fault. I used to be the sweet boy, the innocent one, but the universe is a cruel place,” Mordred snarls, advancing a step on Merlin as Merlin watches with a lost expression.

“That doesn't give you an excuse to murder innocent people,” Arthur says quietly. Merlin startles, looking at him like he'd forgotten Arthur was standing there. Then he straightens to his full height, mouth set in a determined line, perhaps drawing some bravery from the companionship.

“And who's going to stop me? You two?” Mordred sneers. “Arthur failed already and you, dear brother, will never try.”

“Merlin could tear you apart,” Arthur tells him with all the strength in his voice he's ever learned from his father and the academy and years of having to be the leader of lost people on broken planets.

“So why hasn't he?” Mordred says with a slow smile in Arthur's direction. The problem is: it's a valid question. It's the same question Arthur has been asking all this time and one he's never gotten an answer for. He falters, just for a moment, but Mordred sees it in his face and grabs his chance.

“Merlin has always been soft. He could never kill me, not even knowing the things I've done and the things I'll keep on doing. I could tell him now it's me or you, and he'd still hesitate too long,” Mordred snarls viciously. His body is taut like a cable pulled too-tight and the sickly feeling of his magic in the air has become almost palpable.

Maybe it's true. Maybe Merlin couldn't kill his own brother like that. But Arthur knows that Merlin is so much _more_ that Mordred in every way. He barely thinks about it when he crouches to pick up the rifle, hefting the weight of it in his hand, not at all like the weight of the guns he used to carry, but becoming steadily more familiar with each day.

“You going to use that antique on me?” Mordred laughs. Merlin is standing there staring at the gun in Arthur's hand like it's something alien to him, like he doesn't know how it got there.

Arthur feels pressure in his head like the sensation of diving too deep in water and knows that Mordred is about to do something. Arthur remembers being a child and visualizing magic as great bolts of colored light and heat and sound. It had been scary then, accompanied by his father's tales of death and destruction. But somehow, the invisible reality of it is so much worse.

Mordred doesn't even move, just stares at him and out of him comes a shock wave of power. At the same moment, Merlin shouts and does something of his own that turns what Arthur suspects may have been a killing blow into something that feels more like a steel-toed boot to the heart.

Arthur crumbles to his knees, eyes filling unbidden with tears of shocked pain that his father would be ashamed of. His heart feels heavy, throbbing with the kind of pain that feels like it might turn into a bruise someday but hurts like a bitch right now. It's the strangest pain he's ever felt because it doesn't radiate from the surface, it radiates from inside his chest out.

With a crazed sound that's almost a word in a language Arthur doesn't know, Mordred turns on Merlin. When Arthur looks up, there's some kind of magic showdown happening between two of the most powerful magic-users he's ever met and it's happening right before his very eyes. He can't see the attacks, doesn't even know anything about magic strategy, but he can tell that Merlin isn't going to win this fight. He's already bleeding and he's losing ground step and step as Mordred backs him towards the burning barn. Merlin has greater control over his magic, but Mordred has a mad fury behind his actions that Merlin can't hope to counter, not if he's still determined not to harm his brother.

It's not even choice. Arthur struggles back to his feet and brings the rifle to his shoulder, leveling it and sighting down the barrel. He can feel the place on the barrel where the word “Excalibur” has been carved into the metal by some unknown hand and with his other hand, he feels the wood of the stock, worn smooth by so much time and use. He exhales and holds his breath for a moment, remembers for no reason at all how badly he wanted to kiss Merlin the first time he saw him with this gun, and squeezes the trigger.

Mordred's body drops like a stone. Arthur's almost glad it's too dark to see how much of a mess Mordred's head is from his angle. But he can see the dark, wet sheen of blood as it seeps and pools around his corpse. Merlin, on the other hand, can see everything and he looks on in frozen horror at the lifeless stare of Mordred's open eyes illuminated by the flicker of fire. 

Arthur says his name, once, twice, three times and still he gets no response. He approaches slowly and when he's about two arm lengths away, Merlin startles like an animal and looks up at him, eyes still blown wide and blue.

“I'm sorr-” Arthur starts to say.

“Shut up,” Merlin snaps wildly. “Shut up, Arthur.”

“Merlin,” Arthur says quietly. He holds his hand out towards Merlin and lowers the rifle to the ground slowly with bent knees. He takes a tentative step forward and Merlin takes a step back.

“It's okay,” he says gently, taking another step. This time, Merlin doesn't back away and in another two paces, Arthur has pulled him into his arms. Merlin doesn't struggle and after a moment, he wraps arms around Arthur and clings back.

“Everyone I ever knew,” Merlin says, face buried against the fabric of Arthur's shirt.

“I know,” Arthur says, rubbing hands across the planes of his back and shoulders.

“Your ship,” Merlin mumbles and that's when it hits Arthur all over again: he isn't going to get to go home.

“I know,” Arthur says and this time, his throat constricts a little. He'd wanted to go home almost more than anything, almost as much as he'd wanted Merlin to come with him.

“It might not even have worked. It could have killed you anyway. It's just a stupid pile of junk,” Merlin says miserably. It's the first time Arthur has ever heard anything but confidence out of Merlin about what they were building. He knows Merlin is trying to rationalize this, but it's almost more depressing to hear it.

“I-” Arthur starts and finds he isn't sure how to finish the sentence. He doesn't know what he could possibly say that would make this any better. Any chance he'd had is gone now.

“Merlin,” Arthur says suddenly, holding him out at arms length to look him in the face, “how did Mordred get here?”

Merlin blinks at him for a while, lips slightly parted in confused surprise, before Arthur watches the slow rise of comprehension dawning on his features.

“But there would be at least a dozen men, probably more,” Merlin tells him, measuring the weight of each word on his tongue.

“Who better than us though?” Arthur says with a cocky grin. Maybe it's cruel to ask Merlin to do something like this right now when he's still grieving, but Arthur can't afford the time for compassion.

“Okay,” Merlin says. Perhaps it's a lifetime of hardship that's taught him how, but somehow Merlin manages to pull himself together and then they're off running towards the low rise of sand dunes out to the south.

“Where would he land it?” Arthur asks as he runs.

“You think I'd know?” Merlin snaps back, but it has the playful undercurrent in it that means Arthur knows better than to take him seriously.

“You'd know better than everyone else in this town. I definitely don't know. I only fell off it while it was moving,” Arthur says back and somehow, inexplicably, Merlin starts laughing. Arthur isn't so naïve that he thinks Merlin is over the fact that Arthur shot his brother dead or that Merlin isn't likely to shout at him a lot later on. But the sound of Merlin's laugh has always been wonderful and it's so much better than the awful, broken sound of Merlin's fear that Arthur can't help but laugh along with him.

Where Mordred was cruel, powerful and sharp as a whip, his men are blundering, disorganized and dim. They're just a bunch of thugs recruited from sad planets like this one and they've never gotten any kind of training beyond the weekly bar fights most of them had probably participated in. It's too easy for Merlin and Arthur to dispose of them. Merlin may have struggled to fight Mordred, but all it takes is a flash of gold in his eyes and a flick of his wrist and half a dozen men are flung in all directions. Arthur throws a few punches, takes a few hits, just to feel like he's doing something useful. But he knows it's Merlin that's really pulling the weight.

Arthur stands on the ramp that leads up into the belly of the ship and turns to face Merlin who stands at the very edge, feet still flat on the hard packed dirt.

“Can you fly this alone?” Merlin asks him quietly.

“Of course. I probably won't even need the auto pilot to help out,” Arthur tells him, struggling to smile instead of letting his sadness take over his expression.

“You're still an idiot. You could mess up something simple,” Merlin mutters, doing his level best to look mildly annoyed.

“It'll be easier flying this than that scrapheap we cobbled together anyway.”

Merlin snorts.

“Thank you,” Arthur murmurs, “for everything.”

“Yeah. Goodbye then,” Merlin says with a shrug. He meets Arthur's eyes for a long moment, then allows his gaze to shift away and down so he doesn't have to watch Arthur go.

“Hey, Merlin?” Arthur says after a moment in which he doesn't move an inch.

“What now?”

“Come with me.”

Arthur's not sure he's ever seen Merlin smile quite like he does then- two parts happiness and one part love. Merlin steps onto the ramp, climbs until he's even with Arthur, and keeps on smiling like he's unable to stop.

“Guess I can't let you go off on your own now. You still owe me.”

“I saved your life back there!” Arthur squawks indignantly.

“Oh, _please._ ”


	5. Space (Epilogue)

“You know, I've never seen space quite like this. It's something else,” Merlin says conversationally. He's sipping at a can of Arthur's special beer that's really expensive to get and twice as difficult to sneak on board. Everyone else knows not to touch it, but Merlin's always been the irreverent type. That and he knows he can probably give Arthur a blow job in his room and he'll stop bitching about it so much.

“I guess you've always been stuck in the hold,” Arthur replies, leaning back in the pilot's chair and looking out at the spread of inky blackness dotted with pinpricks of light that fills the Camelot's windows.

“Or on some shitty piece of rock,” Merlin quips and it's true enough. 

It'll be another ten days before they get there, but Arthur is looking forward to showing Merlin the great cities of his home world Albion in the inner ring. He even daydreams about the look on Merlin's face. His father might be a problem eventually; they might even have to do something about it. But right here, right now, those problems are the farthest thing from Arthur's mind because Merlin is more alive, more filled with vibrant energy than he's ever been before and most important of all, he's by Arthur's side.

“I think Gwaine and Lance have taken a shine to you,” Arthur says, nudging Merlin with his elbow.

“Jealous, darling?”

“Never,” Arthur laughs.

“They are very handsome,” Merlin says, pitching his voice in a tone that means he's teasing.

“Not as handsome as me,” Arthur grins at him. Merlin makes as if to throw the can at his head and Arthur ducks. But it turns out Merlin hadn't really intended to throw anything so Arthur is left cringing and embarrassed for a moment before he starts bickering with Merlin all over again about not wasting good beer.

“Is it really smart to have a warlock like me on board?” Merlin asks eventually, looking out into the depths of space and not meeting Arthur's eyes in that casually embarrassed way he has when he's not certain he wants to know the answer.

“No, probably not,” Arthur says, “but frankly, I don't give a fuck.”


End file.
